The Heisenberg Indeterminacy Principle in the Context of Covariant Quantum Gravity

Abstract

The subject of this paper deals with the mathematical formulation of the Heisenberg Indeterminacy Principle in the framework of Quantum Gravity. The starting point is the establishment of the so-called time-conjugate momentum inequalities holding for non-relativistic and relativistic Quantum Mechanics. The validity of analogous Heisenberg inequalities in quantum gravity, which must be based on strictly physically observable quantities (i.e., necessarily either 4-scalar or 4-vector in nature), is shown to require the adoption of a manifestly covariant and unitary quantum theory of the gravitational field. Based on the prescription of a suitable notion of Hilbert space scalar product, the relevant Heisenberg inequalities are established. Besides the coordinate-conjugate momentum inequalities, these include a novel proper-time-conjugate extended momentum inequality. Physical implications and the connection with the deterministic limit recovering General Relativity are investigated.